OK, so it wasn’t a Dr. Pepper themed wedding, but Erin & Jonathan LOVE Dr. Pepper.Obviously the sweet soda of many flavors was on hand.Of course the bottles made it into many photos.

One of the best things about being a Nashville wedding photographer is being able to photograph weddings at the ever-popular Historic Cedarwood.If you follow our blog, you probably have noticed a LOT of Cedarwood weddings posted on it lately.We try to keep each one uniquely different.With Erin and Jonathan we tried a few new things.Of course we had to continue to utilize the red barn and Chevy truck.

This week I wanted to share some of the fun things that are happening at Dove in the month of November.

First off is our Introduction to Photography class with Whitney. This is a 3-day class that will be taught November 14th, 15th and 21st. This is a great class for anyone who wants to know how to take pictures utilizing the manual setting of their camera. I took this class last year and learned so much from Whitney about composition, posing, lighting and much more. The first two days of class consist of teaching and hands on learning. The last day of the class will be a full day of shooting with models followed by a photo critique.

There are still a few spots left for the class, so please email me if you would like to reserve your spot.

Secondly, we still have some time available for those of you who want family pictures to send out in your Christmas cards. We are shooting family sessions the weeks of November 9th and 16th. Each family session is $250 and includes an 11×14 Masterpiece print of your choice. You can then also purchase additional prints or even the image disc.

With the leaves changing and the cooler weather coming in, the stage is set for some beautiful backgrounds for your family session. Please contact me if you would like more information or to go ahead and schedule a time.

I included some shots below of sessions we have done in the past. I hope you enjoy.

I am so very excited to post my first blog for Dove Wedding Photography and share these images from Amanda and Dave’s engagement session with you.

We really try to encourage couples to pick places that have meaning to them to do their engagement sessions at. Since Amanda and Dave met while working together in an office in the Renaissance Hotel in Nashville, the hotel and surrounding area was the perfect place for their engagement photos.

The Dove Wedding Photography team has often talked about how our clients are people that we would find ourselves hanging out with. Amanda and Dave further proved our observation. They are such a sweet couple and Dave has quite the gift of making people laugh. I love it when I leave a shoot with my facial muscles hurting because I’ve smiled so much! Below are a few images from the session.

I chose this image because I love the expression on Amanda’s face. You can see in Amanda’s eyes how happy she is when Dave is holding her. I really feel that Dave’s simple white shirt helps your focus stay on Amanda’s eyes.

I chose the location on the left for several reasons. The first being Amanda’s dress went with the green tint of the windows. I knew that I was going to like this girl as soon as I saw her bright green dress. I love color and I felt the black background and the green windows really made her dress pop. I also love how Amanda and Dave are just laughing and enjoying each other. They are at ease. I believe this image was taken after Dave did an impression of their dog that had both Amanda and I laughing so hard that we almost cried.

The photograph on the right was taken in the Renaissance. I love how the escalator goes diagonally across the image and the two of them are towards the center of the image. Of course this photo was not as easy to take as it appears. Once I figured out the speed of the escalator, we had to work around people that needed to use the escalator. Luckily Amanda and Dave were great sports about going up and down a million times.

Congratulations Amanda and Dave! Here’s to many years of laughter, happiness, and green dresses!

We’re back with photo tips! If you missed our last post on ISO, you can find it on our blog.

So you now understand that ISO defines your camera’s sensitivity to light. You know that a lower number means that it is less sensitive and a higher number means that it is more sensitive. So now the question is, why don’t you just use the most sensitive ISO all the time? Things could be so much easier, just keeping on one setting all the time and changing everything else according to that. You could do all your indoor shots without flash, you wouldn’t have to worry about low light situations, and even in brighter light you could have one less thing to think about, right? Well, the problem is that when you change your ISO, you are also changing the quality of your image. When you have a low ISO (ex. 100), the quality of your image is top notch! With film, you would hardly have any film grain, and with digital hardly any noise. But when you use a higher ISO (ex. 800 or 1600) the quality of your photograph is going to go down. You will have a lot more grain or digital noise in your photograph.

Digital camera’s today have come a long way by having better quality with a higher ISO. And the digitalness (I know, that’s not a word!) of the photographs look even closer to grain than they once did, or maybe our eyes are just getting used to it! I often use 800 ISO in lower lighting situations and the images are still high quality. Even 1600 is decent on newer models, but I avoid it as much as I can. However, I don’t recommend 1600 at all with older models such as the Canon 20d.

There are some exceptions to this rule. Sometimes I may decided that I want a grainy photograph and will then purposely use a higher ISO. This can give the image more of a vintage feel. Sometimes people will even go back and add grain to their photograph to give this type of look.

So what is the rule of thumb? Always use as low of an ISO as you can.When you are outdoors in bright light, use 100 or 200. When you are indoors, if you can shoot at 400 with your flash, do it! But if not, use 800. Don’t be afraid of grain either, you can still have a beautiful image with a vintage look. There are also programs out there that can take away some of the grain, but I personally would rather see it than take it away. This was taken at 200 ISO.This was taken at 1600 ISO. Can you see the difference?

I still remember the first meeting we had with Jenny & EJ over a year ago! They were so excited about their wedding, and especially their photography. Who wouldn’t love that! They gave us so much time to photograph them on the day of the wedding and we had such a blast doing it. And it certainly helps that they are super sweet and totally in love. The wedding took place at The Governor’s Club in Brentwood which is beautiful! A Delightful Day: (always spectacular!) was there to coordinate the wedding, and the cake was by Maples Wedding Cakes: (always yummy!). Here are some of my favorites from the day!

This is right before Jenny & EJ saw each other for the first time. I love this shot of Jenny. She was so happy all day, and cried tears of joy.Bubbles!Erin captured this image. We found out later that this little girl was scared of blinking in the photographs. I love it!Thanks for a wonderful day for us Jenny & EJ!

Recently all the blogs that I’ve been reading have shown some really unique ways couples are personalizing their guestbook at their wedding. I think very few people are sticking to the traditional “sign your name on a line” guestbook and using this wedding tradition as another way to add their personal flair to the details of the day.

One of my favorite stories was how the bride and her sister painted a tree on a large canvas. The couple had all of their guests sign the leaves of the tree and then the bride and groom signed the “carved” heart on the trunk during their ceremony as their version of the unity candle. Now they have a really cool piece of art hanging on their wall with a ton of meaning.

So I got to thinking about Dove and the guestbooks that we offer our brides that can be a fun alternative to the traditional books.

If you do an engagement session with Dove, one of the fun things you can do with your pictures is use them in your guestbook. We have two types of books- a graphic designed guestbook and a matted design. It’s a fun way for your guests to leave you sweet notes while also getting to see a sample of your engagement photos. Both these designs are great examples of something different that you can do with your engagement photos and guestbook.

Below are some examples of different and fun “guestbooks” from different Dove brides.

This is an example of our matted guest book we offer.

No matter what you decide to do for your guestbook, whether a photo booth, graphic or matted guestbook, signing a large picture, guitar, or painting, etc…, make it your own and something that you are going to treasure for years to come.

Every now and then I take photos of Whitney working. She never lets me show them on our blog. Just the other day she photographed an engagement session for Kimberly and Rashad in downtown Nashville. McNeal Wedding Video was on hand to film the session. They just posted a blog with a few still frames that shows Whitney at work. So, I figured it was OK to now show all of our readers what a session looks like from “outside” the camera. Thanks McNeal for posting these stills: check out their blog post from this session on the McNeal Blog.

As you can see, Whitney is all over the place and works very hard at every session and wedding. Check out the bottom right photo.Yes, that is Whitney lying on the ground. Here is the shot she got while she was on the ground!

Sometimes, we find ourselves getting into all sorts of different places so that we can get just the right angle or capture the light just perfectly.I photographed a senior portrait last week in a field.I didn’t realize I was crutching over a bees’ nest.Needless to say, I walked away with a few stings including a big one on my butt.Don’t worry; I am not going to share the “behind the scenes” photos from that session.

Last week we had a great time at The Franklin Bridal Ball. As part of our booth, we thought it would be fun to set up a mini photo studio. It turned out to be a lot of fun! If you had your photo taken by Erin & Peter at the show, please visit our Flickr page to download your free digital image. Feel free to use your photograph on your personal website(s) showing your friends what a great time you had with us at the wedding show.